Biography

=Biography=

On February 1,1902, in Joplin, Mississippi, Langston Hughes was born. Hughes was a poet who specialized in jazz poetry. He often wrote about being African American and how life was for him personally and for African American people in general. This upset the upper-class African American population who saw Hughes’ writing as degrading. Hughes’ main theme was about how black is beautiful. He also incorporated themes that would be familiar to people with the ability to read such as struggling to pay the rent “I wish the rent was heaven sent” (Hughes). When Hughes was young, his father left the family and later a divorce between Hughes’ mother and father was signed. In grammar school, Hughes was elected class poet. He felt that being elected was a stereotype since poetry needs rhythm and in Hughes’ opinion, he was only elected because “all negros have rhythm” (Hughes). As an adult, Hughes worked many odd jobs such as being a bus boy, an assistant cook and a launderer. He also served as a crewman abroad the //S.S. Malone// in 1923.

Hughes was inspired by many writers such as Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman. Some biographers today believe that Hughes was homosexual and had added homosexual codes in his poems, similar to Walt Whitman. In 1960, Hughes was awarded the Harmon Gold Medal for literature in 1930 and the Spingarn Medal for Distinguished Achievements by an African American from the NAACP. Hughes was also added to the list of the 100 Greatest African Americans List in 2002 and was awarded the Honorary Doctor of Letters at Lincoln University in 1947.

On May 22, 1967, Hughes died from post surgery complications related to cancer. His ashes are under a floor medallion in the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, in Harlem. The medallion is at the entrance to an auditorium named for Hughes. Directly above his ashes is the line “My soul has grown deep like the rivers” (Hughes) from the poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers.

Work Cited
“Langston Hughes.” //Wkipeidia.com//. Wikipeidia Foundation. 2001-2012. Web. March 13, 2012. 

“Langston Hughes.” //Poets.org.// Academy of American Poets. 1997-2012. Web. March 22, 2012. 

“Langston Hughes.” //PoetryFoundation.org.// The Poetry Foundation. 2011. Web. March 22, 2012. 